My stroke.

Last Monday 17th October, at about 8:30am, I was sitting at home when I felt dizzy, and suddenly numb on the left side of my body. The dizziness, and the numbness came in waves and I hoped it would subside. After a few minutes of this, though, I started to worry. Although the symptoms were particularly strong in my arm and chest, I didn't think I was having a heart attack, because there was no pain. In fact, it felt quite pleasant. My father had had a stroke in his early sixties, and I knew that a generalised hemilateral effect was likely to to be something neurological. So, I called my wife and we decided to call NHS direct.

They took me through some questions, again ruling out heart attack, and sent an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived (only a few minutes later), my symptoms had subsided. As the paramedics went through similar questions, I began to feel a little fraudulent. They took me to the ambulance to check my blood pressure, and temperature, and wired me up to an ECG machine. The ECG and temperature were normal, but my blood pressure a bit high. The paramedics offered to take me in to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, for a check over.

On the way, my symptoms returned, and were much more intense. I felt dizzier, and the numbness was more widespread, and more intense. It seems likely now that this was a stroke, and that the earlier attack (about an hour had passed) was a TIA or "mini stroke". So, somewhat amazingly, I was already on the way to hospital when I had my stroke - if that's what it was.

On arrival at the hospital, I was assessed pretty quickly, and a stroke team assembled around me within about 15 minutes. I scored one out of twenty-five on some scale or other, according to all the prodding, poking and various other tests. Not high enough to justify administration of thrombolytic drugs, but had I required them we were still well within the three hour schedule. While being prodded and poked, blood samples were taken, and afterwards I was sent for a CT scan, and then taken to the stroke ward.

There, I was assessed again. I was told that I'd be in overnight, and then taken away for an MRI scan, and ultrasound scans. The ultrasound scans showed that my carotid arteries were nice and clean. I got to see them live, and that was quite cheering. I think they were particularly looking for build up of fats at the point where the common carotid artery branches into the internal and external carotid arteries.

Back on the ward, I was further cheered by being offered a choice of six different vegan meals! When the meals came, they were piping hot, and reasonably tasty. Not haute cuisine, but certainly way above my expectation. And, they had soya milk for my breakfast Weetabix. My bed had a sea view, and I was set to stop for the week. That is, until the night shift started!

I don't think anybody got much sleep that night. One patient seemed to think we were all police officers being subjected to some horrendous illegal experiments. He was threatening to throw furniture around, and ordering nurses to -variously- attend to his every whim, or leave him alone. Fortunately, he never made good on any of his threats. The nurses were amazingly patient throughout. The shouty man calmed down when the ward got busier in the morning; perhaps because he had more to think about than his own fantasies. Unfortunately for the nurses, another patient took great exception to being dressed, and whacked one of them pretty hard. She had to go to A&E with a suspected broken nose.

I had a load more bloods taken in the morning - about six vials. I learned that these vials come vacuum filled, so they literally suck the blood out of you. I was seen by a consultant, who was satisfied that I was fit to discharge. Still numb all down the left side, but with some sensation returning to my hand, foot and lower leg.

Yesterday, I returned to work. But, today I had more MRI scans - two head scans and two neck scans. They included MRAs, looking at blood vessels, and one used Gadolinium contrast agent. That was a total of an hour, inside a machine so noisy that it was a bit like being stuck inside a giant dial-up modem.

Now, I'm getting used to life, still trying to work out what this means. I feel like I'm carrying a stack of phone directories under my arm, and it's uncomfortable to lie on my previously preferred left side. I think I'm tiring more easily, and my arm seems to get painful when I am tired. I think I have a full range of movement, and haven't lost any strength. I may be a bit more grumpy than I was, but my speech seems normal, and Tories and John Humphrys still make me cross.

And, I love the NHS! The nurses, nursing assistants, porters, doctors, caterers and technicians, -and my wife- were all really professional, kind and attentive. One of the paramedics waved at me from his ambulance as I walked through Lewes at the weekend!

30 Oct - edited to correct spelling of John Humphrys' name.

Lewes District Tories paid to do nothing.

Lewes District Tories run the only council in Sussex to pay their own members for a cabinet role without portfolio. Actually, there are three of them.

Until May 2011, Lewes District Council had a cabinet with nine members, six from the majority group (Liberal Democrats) and three from the minority group (Conservatives). Apart from Hastings, Lewes was the only local authority in Sussex to have a mixed cabinet. When the Tories won control, they decided that the cabinet would be all Tory.

It's a bit hard to keep up with their reshuffles since then, but now they have a cabinet with nine members. Three of those members have no portfolio, but receive (or are entitled to receive) a full "special responsibility allowance" despite having no special responsibility. They do, of course, attend cabinet meetings, but there's already a much lower special responsibility allowance for members of committees that meet frequently.

I decided to take a look at what the other local authorities (District, Borough, City and Council) in Sussex do. I didn't include town and parish councils, since their members receive far lower allowances.

Hastings is the only one with a cabinet that includes opposition members. They have six Labour members, and four Tories. Five of the Labour members have a portfolio, and the sixth does not receive a special responsibility allowance. The four Tories have no portfolio, and receive an allowance of about half that of the other members.

All of the rest have cabinets of a leader, and five, six, or seven, other members members (nine in the case of Brighton and Hove), and every one of those members has a portfolio of responsibilities.

So, it seems that only the Lewes District Tories think it necessary to award a "Special Responsibility Allowance" to one (well, three actually) of their own members without a special responsibility.

Brighton and Hove - all ten cabinet members are Green party members, and have a portfolio.

East Sussex County Council - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Eastbourne - all six cabinet members are Liberal Democrats, and each has a portfolio.
Wealden  - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Rother - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Hastings - ten cabinet members. Six Labour, four Conservatives. Five portfolios are held by Labour members, the sixth does not receive a special responsibility allowance.

West Sussex County Council - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio
Adur - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Arun - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Chichester - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Worthing - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Mid Sussex - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Horsham - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Crawley - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Blood, Drugs and Violence - at Lib Dem conference.

The Lib Dem conference agenda for Autumn 2011 includes policy motions on Science Not Stigma: Ending the Blood Ban (p39), Protecting Individuals and Communities from Drug Harms (p24), and Tackling Violence against Women (p30). Full texts of these motions and others, are found in the agenda (pdf).

If you're going, and you have an electronic diary, then you may find this iCalendar file useful: LDconf-09-2011.ics The information here is taken from the very nice new pocket diary, but please let me know in the comments below if you see any errors.

You won't see Labour or the Tories debating these issues. Neither party makes policy at conference. Labour don't even publish their conference agenda!

Edited to add: I've also posted copies of the conference agenda and the conference directory, to which I've added electronic Tables of Contents. Note that they'll only be available here for 30 days. The Tables of Contents make it much easier to use the electronic versions of the papers. Don't forget to also consult the "Conference Extra" papers, with late amendments and editions, available from http://www.libdems.org.uk/autumn_conference_papers.aspx You'll also find full policy documents and consultation papers there.

Silver Address Book

Like me, Giles of Simple and Usable doesn't like the fussy new faux leather appearance for Apple's iCal and Address Book. He's created a new skin for iCal, and inspired by that, I've done the same for Address Book. To use it:

1. Make a copy of Address Book, in case something goes wrong.
2. Download this file (simply a compressed folder of .png files).
3. Quit Address Book.
3. Copy the contents of my file (all the .png files) into "/Applications/Address Book.app/Contents/Resources/"

If you need more detailed instructions, the process is very similar to that described at Simple and Usable

This is what it looks like.

If you wish, you can colour the interface by modifying the files  inwardPointingCards.png inwardPointingGroups.png (the two tabs) and leatherTile.png. Doubtless a variety of alternative hideous skins can be created by modifying just these three files.

Macnix has an easy to install silver skin for each of iCal and the Address Book. I've not tried them, but it looks like the Address Book skin leaves in place quite a lot of unnecessary shadows, faux "stitching" and so on. I've tried to remove as much of that as possible.

Edited to add: I've fixed the link above. Apple killed me.com, so I moved the file to my dropbox.com account. If you like this fix, please open a dropbox account with that link and I'll get a bit more free storage!

That Lib Dem letter in full

Liberal Democrat council leaders wrote a letter to the Times today. I'm pissed off that that meant I had to give a quid to the Murdoch Empire today, but I agree with the content. The letter is also behind the Times Paywall, and printed in today's Times. Only the first few signatories are listed in the print version.

Italics below are mine. I've highlighted those parts because while you can read the misleading headline for free at the Times, you have to pay to read the truth - that this letter is all about Eric Pickles.

In contrast to central government’s runaway spending, local governments have been making savings for years

Sir,

Local government is playing its part in tackling the country’s deficit and advancing the Coalition’s aims of localism and the Big Society. But local, and central, government are being let down by the Communities and Local Government Secretary who appears unwilling to lead the change that’s so desperately needed. Local government has made efficiency savings of 3 per cent in each of the past eight years — in stark contrast to the runaway spending of central government under the previous administration. We’ve also been planning for further saving since the true state of the economy became apparent six months ago.

What has been delivered is a difficult cuts package across all government departments but clearly the most severe is to local government. These cuts will have an undoubted impact on all frontline council services, including care services to the vulnerable.

Rather than assist the country’s recovery by making public-sector savings in a way that can protect local economies and the frontline, the cuts are so structured that they will do the opposite. The local government settlement will take a major hit in this coming financial year and further, smaller, cuts in subsequent years. This front-loading means councils do not have the lead-in time necessary to re-engineer services on a lower-cost base and ease staff cuts without forced, expensive redundancies. Inexplicably, local government is also being denied the opportunity to spread the cost of reorganisation and downsizing over several years — at no cost to central government — which just makes even bigger in-year cuts inevitable The Secretary of State’s role should be to facilitate necessary savings while promoting the advance of localism and the Big Society. Unfortunately, Eric Pickles has felt it better to shake a stick at councillors than work with us.

Local and central government should be united in a shared purpose. Instead of chastising and denigrating local authorities through the media, the Government should deploy all its efforts to help councils minimise the impact on vulnerable communities and frontline services.

We would be delighted to discuss with the Secretary of State how we could take on the difficult challenges shared by all levels of government and would prefer to do this than continue with the gunboat diplomacy which is the current order of the day.

Cllr Richard Kemp

Leader, Liberal Democrat Group, Local Government Association

Cllr Carl Minns

Lib Dem Leader Hull City Council

Cllr Cec Tallack

Lib Dem Leader Milton Keynes

Cllr Paul Tilsley

Lib Dem, Deputy Leader, Birmingham City Council

Cllr David Faulkner

Lib Dem Leader, Newcastle City Council

Cllr Ian Marks

Lib Dem Leader, Warrington Borough Council

Leaders

Cllr Virginia Gay, North Norfolk; Cllr Andrew De Freitas, North East Lincolnshire Council; Cllr Tim Carroll, South Somerset; Cllr Stuart Langhorn, Lancaster City Council; Cllr David Watts, Broxtowe BC; Cllr Tony de Vere, Vale of White Horse; Cllr Keith House, Eastleigh BC; Cllr Anne Turrell, Colchester (NOC); Cllr Sian Reid, Cambridge City; Cllr Alan Connett, Teignbridge DC; Cllr David Budd, Purbeck DC; Cllr Ann De Vecchi, Lewes DC; Cllr Dorothy Thornhill, Watford Mayor; Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader, Portsmouth City Council

Group Leaders

Cllr Alan Boad, Warwick DC; Cllr Gavin James, Basingstoke & Deane BC; Cllr Tom Smith-Hughes, Essex CC; Cllr Joe Abbott, South Tyneside; Cllr Roger Hayes, Bolton MBC; Cllr Peter Wilcock, Uttlesford BC; Cllr Simon McDougall, Arun DC; Cllr Brendan Haigh, Newark & Sherwood DC; Cllr Nigel Martin, Durham; Cllr Hilary Jones, Derby City Council; Cllr Linda Redhead, Halton; Cllr Sue Carpendale, Babergh DC; Cllr Iain Sharpe, Watford BC; Cllr Kathy Pollard, Suffolk CC; Cllr Maureen Rigg, Stockton; Cllr John Boyce, Oadby & Wigston BC; Cllr Andrew Smith, Chicester DC; Cllr Phil Taylor, Tewkesbury BC; Cllr Len Gates, Test Valley BC; Cllr Ruth Davis, South Gloucestershire; Cllr Tony Gillam, Gedling BC; Cllr Chris Maines, Lewisham BC; Cllr David Milsted, North Dorset DC; Cllr Roger Price, Fareham BC; Cllr Brian Greenslade, Devon CC; Cllr Ian Stewart, Cumbria CC; Cllr Richard Andrews, West Oxfordshire DC; Cllr Margaret Rowley, Wychavon DC; Cllr Ann Buckley, Havant BC; Cllr Jane Parlour, Richmondshire DC; Cllr Alan Sherwell, Aylesbury Vale DC; Cllr Graham Longley, Southend BC; Cllr Zoe Patrick, Oxfordshire CC; Cllr Brian Jeffries, East Riding of Yorkshire; Cllr Bob Sullivan, Waltham Forest BC; Cllr David Lomax, High Peak BC; Cllr Paul Coddington, Doncaster MBC; Cllr Liz Tucker, Worcestershire CC; Cllr Simon Ashley, Manchester City Council; Cllr Roger Walshe, Sevenoaks DC; Cllr John Fisher, Staffs Moorlands; Cllr Paul Morse, Norfolk CC; Cllr Jane Clark, Wealden DC; Cllr Christina Jebb, Staffordshire CC; Cllr David Walker, Charnwood BC; Cllr Noel Rippeth, Gateshead; Cllr Penny Otton, Mid Suffolk DC; Cllr Nan Farmer, Carlisle; Cllr David Foster, Blackburn with Darwen; Cllr Dr Robin Studd, Newcastle under Lyme; Cllr Peter Chegwyn, Gosport BC; Cllr Richard Sharp, Woking BC; Cllr Mary Baldwin, Bucks CC; Cllr Jerry Roodhouse, Warwickshire CC; Cllr David Neighbour, Hart DC; Cllr Arthur Preece, Hartlepool BC; Cllr Nigel Hartin, Shropshire CC; Cllr David Neve, Tunbridge Wells BC; Cllr Geoff Welsh, Blaby DC; Cllr Roger Kutchinsky, Hertsmere BC; Cllr Ross Henley, Taunton Deane BC; Cllr Jack Cohen, Barnet BC; Cllr Julie Morris, Epsom & Ewell; Cllr Terry Stacy, Islington BC; Cllr Alex Perkins, Canterbury City; Cllr Geoff Chamberlain, East Devon DC; Cllr David Fearn, Derbyshire Dales DC; Cllr Helen Dyke, Wyre Forest DC; Cllr Paul English, Craven DC; Cllr Paul Elgood, Brighton & Hove; Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Cotswold DC

How to rank 39 candidates

If you're a voting rep to the Lib Dem conference, you should have ballot papers and manifesto booklets for six panels and committees, with a total of over 200 candidates. The task is to rank the candidate in each election, with between 20 and 45 candidates in each. That's a pretty daunting task, and promises to be quite time consuming.

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but here are some tips that'll make it a lot easier.

First, start with one of the shorter ballots: the ELDR council delegation or the International Relations Committee. Read through all the manifestos once, to get an idea of the range of candidates, and what they're saying. Some of the candidates are excellent, others have -well- let's say they've not communicated their qualities quite so well. The point of this stage is just to get a feel for the range of candidates.

Next, you need to break down the daunting task of ranking 20 candidates, by sorting them into a few groups of a few roughly equally qualified candidates.

Think about the experience and qualities required for the panel that you're voting on. Then construct a marking scheme for the candidates. It doesn't have to be rigorous: the point is to sort the candidates into a few categories, with just a few candidates in each. Go through each manifesto, and give it a score out of four or five.

I gave a point for having submitted a manifesto; a point for having clear relevant experience (like having worked abroad for the International Relations panel); a point for sitting members (to promote continuity); a point for mentioning policies that matter to me (for example, for abolishing the Lords in the Interim Peers Panel).

During this process, I found I made a few exceptions. For example, I downgraded a candidate who referred to himself as "one of our sharpest policy brains", and I gave Chris Wiggin my first place vote for the Interim Peers Panel because of his opposition to the Digital Economy Act.

Now, take the highest ranking group, and rank the individuals in the group. Since you've given them the top grade, and there are several places on the committee, it doesn't matter too much what the exact order is. However, you'll find that sorting a handful of candidates is much easier than trying to tackle the whole field at once. The important thing is that you don't miss any out at this point.

Once you've ranked the top group, move to the second group, and so on, until you're finished. Note that you don't have to give scores to everyone, but I found that there were some people who clearly hadn't given any impression that they were qualified (for example, some hadn't submitted a manifesto). Others said things that just irritated me. In order to rank them last, you have to rank the middle range, too!

10:10 - done!

Today is 10/10/10, and naturally the 10:10 campaign made a big deal of that. I pledged to meet the 10:10 objectives, and more importantly supported Lewes District Council's pledge.

I think I've met my commitment, and this is how I did it.

First, some cheap and easy stuff, that'll pay for itself quite quickly.

I was already buying my electricity from Ecotricity, because they invest more of their income in renewables than any other supplier. But, they have two tariffs. The very slightly more expensive tariff is "100% green", which means that they match every unit that they supply by buying a unit from a renewable supplier, like a wind farm. I upgraded to the 100% green tariff.

To work out how to cut down electricity usage, I borrowed an electricity monitor from Lewes Library, and spent a few hours working out where my electricity consumption was coming from. We already have compact flourescent lightbulbs (cfl) throughout the house, and thought we were doing quite well in general. But, we did find two ways to make significant savings:

We watch TV through a computer. Although the computer has low standby consumption, the monitor and other peripherals weren't so good. I invested in a "Standby Saver" power strip at £21, which switches those things off when the computer is switched off. We've also started shutting down rather than putting to sleep the computer. I think we'll save at least £50 per year in electricity.

We also discovered that our microwave oven uses about 50VA on standby, but only 3 Watts. That's because it has an abysmal power factor of about 4%. It's not costing us much, because we're charged for Watt hours, not VA hours. But, it is (I think) drawing power unnecessarily, that has to be generated, even at peak times. So, we've plugged it in to a separate, switched socket, and turn it off when we can.

However, it's space heating that accounts for about 60% of domestic energy use in the UK, so this is the most important place to look for savings; by insulation to prevent loss of heat, and by efficient supply of that heat. Our space heating is mains gas, which produces less CO2 than oil, and currently less than electricity. That'll change as we remove coal, oil and gas power stations in favour of renewables and nuclear. In the long term though, electric heat pumps will probably be the most effective way of heating existing homes, and passive solar gain the best way to heat new super-insulated housing.

Second, some mid-price stuff, with big savings. It'll also pay for itself quite quickly.

Insulation: our 1950s house was already double glazed throughout, when we bought it a few years ago. Not the best double glazing, but generally in good nick, and upgrading that would be very expensive. We were amazed to find out that it didn't have cavity wall insulation, and the loft insulation was minimal. So, we used an LDC grant to help get the cavity wall's insulated for a few hundred pounds. We also upgraded the loft insulation. These measures not only kept the house much warmer in winter, but also much cooler in summer. Gone were the long, sticky, sleepless nights!

It turned out that DIY was cheaper for the loft insulation, but tricky if we wanted to use the loft for storage. So, we added 8 inches of insulation above the main bedroom, but put boards over the spare bedroom. Now, with the 10:10 commitment, we wanted to upgrade the whole loft. We've now got decent insulation throughout, under a properly boarded floor. We also had plywood sheets put under the roof, to stop dust falling through the tiles. Finally, we had a proper loft ladder, and lights fitted. The consequence is that we not only have a properly insulated loft, but much more usable loft space, in which we can keep stuff that we need to access only occasionally. For example, its much more practical to keep luggage, winter coats during summer, spare bedding, and so on - all alongside the stuff that we only ever see when moving house!

Now, all that work in the loft was quite expensive, but the insulation itself would cost only a couple of hundred pounds, save at least £100 per year on heating costs, and cuts out the worst of winter cold, and summer heat.

Third, some more expensive stuff that should pay for itself over five to ten years. Maybe quicker if fuel prices keep rising as expected.

The most important thing is that we've replaced our boiler. It was installed in 1979, and was probably about 60% efficient. That is, it wasted 40% of the gas that it burned. Modern are typically about 90% efficient. They manage this by carefully controlling the gas/air mixture, and by recovering heat from their exhaust gases.

At the same time, we chose a combi boiler, which needs no hot water cylinder. As we use an electric shower, we tend only to use hot water from the boiler for washing up and hand washing. There's no point keeping a huge tank of water hot for that. This has given us a lot of new storage space in the old airing cupboard, and on top of that, we no longer need a water tank in the loft.

And, we've also got much better heating controls. Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) throughout mean that no rooms become overheated. Programmable TRVs in the bedroom and living room mean we can focus heating on the bedroom in the morning, and the living room in the evening. We've also chosen a weather compensator, which measures the outside temperature, and allows the heating system to deliver the right amount of heat, at a steady rate to match the heat loss through the walls.

Finally, we picked an Ariston boiler which is compatible with solar hot water systems, and with underfloor heating (giving us a gradual route to heat pumps). Those are much more expensive systems, that we can't afford at the moment. Solar panels would have cost us much more, and saved much less energy. Heat pumps would also have cost more, and probably have saved no carbon emissions, given the current mix of the UK energy supply.

I don't drive, and we don't fly, so there's not much room for improvement there. My wife works as a rural community occupational therapist, but she's about to get a new car which should reduce her fuel consumption but at least 50%.

Now, we don't know the results yet, and they'll be somewhat weather dependent, but the new central heating system might be expected to reduce our domestic CO2 footprint by 20%. Add in the electricity savings, and we'll hope to do much better than the 10% commitment.